Highwayman
by Acey Dearest
Summary: Light nodded again, and almost thought he smelled chocolate cupcakes, iced with blood, doused with strawberries. Spoilers for chapter 58.


"Highwayman"

by Acey

Disclaimer: Knowing me, I'd have somehow turned Death Note into an unlovely shounen romance, complete with far too many short-skirted, un-endowed spacegirls, laser guns, and mecha. Seeing as Death Note is thankfully not going in that direction... chapter fifty-eight spoilers.

L had subsisted on a diet of sugar and caffeine, after all, so it seemed like a fair enough, if unintentional, homage that the candy seemed to linger for what felt like weeks after his death. Light would open bureaus in the hotel and find packages of sugar cubes, tied securely shut against the ants, or doughnuts—powdered, cream-filled, glazed—for now unspoiled, as though the sweets were not yet willing to rot with their master.

In a good mood once he opened one of the doughnut packages, trifled idly with the thought of eating the whole dozen himself as a tribute. He thought better of it quickly and laughed at himself, playfully offering it to Misa, who denied it with a wince.

"I don't want the _pervert's_ old food. The calories are bad for keeping a good figure. Misa would have to diet afterwards." A cheerful pause, then a big grin, fit for the tabloids. Now only he knows what makes it differ from any other runway models,' what makes it haunting, jack-o'-lantern disturbing. "Misa bets he _would've_ died of a heart attack soon anyway, the way he ate all that junk!"

Light let it go as far as she went, but stuck a doughnut in his mouth anyway as soon as she walked out, Ryuk in silent tow.

He spat it out quickly. The doughnut was bone dry.

--

Misa was half-convinced that with L gone, Light might want to spend more time with her during the time he had off creating his paradise. She put no fault on Light himself—paradise was hard work indeed when he had refused to let her help much in making it so—but it would keep her happy. Light would oblige for that much, to keep her heart willingly tethered to him.

She took more modeling jobs and refurbished her apartment. The darker tones became understated, except for the bedroom, which remained half-drowned in black lace and skulls. Light said nothing of it, though Misa asked him if he were sure that would be all right, of course, anything for her Light.

He nodded his assurance, and Misa hugged him at the waist, saying that was her favorite room of all and maybe the stuff was childish but what was wrong with that if she liked it that way... if he liked it that way...

Light nodded again, and almost thought he smelled chocolate cupcakes, iced with blood, doused with strawberries.

--

He kissed her more often, but it was the distracted sort of kiss she was used to. She pouted a little, brought up her many roles—_Light, didn't I save old Matsuda? Wouldn't I have killed L for you, if you had let me? Didn't I cry when they had the funeral, even though I wanted to laugh and laugh? Please, Light... _

The plea was never what made him obey as much as the change from third person to first. When Misa felt she had no more room to play out her quirks, she had to be held, had to be whispered to, had to be almost-convinced that he did love her. Ryuk, ever-amused by all Light's charades, said nothing throughout.

"Yes, yes, Misa, you would have. You'd have killed the whole world for me, wouldn't you, Misa?"

"Everyone!" and her brown eyes shone. For the moment, she seemed entirely his again. "But Light... I—Misa acted well at the funeral. It was a hard performance. He was buried so _funny_, they didn't cremate him, remember? They just left him in that coffin and his eyes were closed but Misa—felt he could see what was happening for a second. Like he was the one looking in at us. Misa couldn't laugh then. Not that Misa would—!"

He cut her off poorly, mind suddenly turned to the plastic lenses of cameras that saw through motivations and the too-bright glow of silent computers, long fingers making the keys clack-clack-clack and the man behind them thinking nearly to the end that he was the real Justice, that he would defeat his doppelganger and send him to the electric chair—

"You're a fine actress."

It sounded hollow, even to him, but the mention of L unnerved his finesse in handling her. He anticipated her returning pout and quickly stopped it before it would start.

"Misa—let's say I stay home tonight. Will that work?"

She knew what the code words meant and kissed him hard as her thanks, her black lipstick covering his face as she tugged him to the bedroom.

--

Misa fell asleep quickly afterwards, appeased. Light left the lamp on and pulled out magazines from under the bed, searched for the old Kira articles that had kept him amused during the first months of building paradise. Misa could sleep through the lamplight.

He was about to turn the lamp off when he saw a sudden flash of white.

"Yagami."

Light froze. He tried to blink away the specter but it remained, solid, pale—utterly condemning.

No smells that seemed to pervade the air too long. No cameras that seemed to whirr like brilliant paparazzi. He had come stripped of all his tools this time, and that made him seem even larger than ever.

L, looking down at him.

Light forced smiling composure, managed to speak.

"I killed you."

"You can't kill an idea, Yagami." L smiled, showing glinting teeth. "And that is exactly what L is. A file on a computer. A display on a screen. A lofty, brilliant ideal to admire, and vie for a lifetime to live up to.

"And one day, Yagami, one day become." Idly he moved the chair. "Until the day came that L was all that was left."

Light suddenly laughed, mouth open wide as a ventriloquist's dummy, ready to split at the edge. "All that's left? Your body is rotting. The precious vessel with all its knowledge is tunneled over with worms."

The corners of L's mouth tilted slightly upward.

"Is it?"

"I was your pallbearer." Light reached for the edge of the bed, supporting himself on his arms. His voice grew steadier. "I threw the first clump of dirt on your coffin. You're as dead as the rest of them, L; you're just too damn logical to believe it yourself."

L only laughed.

"I am L now." Louder, louder. "I am L now, do you hear me? I call every shot now. Every shot."

He looked to his side.

Misa was still sleeping there, undisturbed. Her hand reached to his side of the bed, searching out warmth, and she mumbled incomprehensible phrases. Light saw that one of the spaghetti straps of her nightgown had fallen from her shoulders.

He did not hear L move, none of his furtive, slow shuffles. He heard nothing, and yet L was there, suddenly there at the bed.

Light stood, fists raised out of defiant instinct, not protection. L's goldfish bowl eyes seemed to dismiss the action. L only leaned over Misa like a malformed specter.

"Yagami, you will never be L."

He took the strap in one finger and fixed it back onto her shoulder. She didn't stir. And Ryuk did not see him do it—or maybe Ryuk just wasn't looking, just wasn't paying attention—maybe—

Light swore desperately. He tried to jerk his gaze away from the detective, but L's bag-lined eyes saw everything as his cameras never had. He could see L walk, hunched and shuffled, but toward him—toward him, toward him.

"Get out of here," he said, like a prayer, a rite of exorcism by God to his Devil. "Get out of here, Ryuuzaki."

L left, leaving the rotten smell of decaying sweets in his wake.

finis


End file.
